Entries tagged with “Olympics” from Global Sports Buzz
The Nike PreCool Vest was developed for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a vest that lowers the body's core temperature. The body's muscles work much more efficient and will perform better in competition when muscles are not dedicating their resources to cooling down the body.
The vest consist
of two layers, the inner layer that is filled with frozen water and the outer
layer that is coated with aluminum to act like a thermos, trapping cold in
while reflecting radiant heat. It is designed to be used about an hour before
competition, and athletes keep it on during their normal warm up and then take
it off right before competition, it can help athletes last up to 21% longer
while competing. But the vest is only available for Olympic athletes, but in
time I am sure it will be available for the average joe.
Baseball's try to get back into the Olympics begins Friday, when Harvey Schiller, International Baseball Federation president, goes to Switzerland, to make a presentation before the International Olympic Committee. Their goal is to stop the embarrassment of the 2005 vote that calls for baseball and softball to be taken out of the Olympics in the 2012 London Games. This vote is due to the lack of MLB players taking partin the olympics do to their season.Six other sports are battling baseball for a spot in the Olympics, including rugby, softball and golf. The committee will most likely pick two sports o
ut of these making 28 total sports. Schiller says that basebal should not be taken out of the olympics because it is a sport that many of our youths are playing and look for role models in it and the fact that Europe is beginning to adapt the sport. he also says that their ar enow up to 40 MLB players participating in the olympics and that he believes he can get more into the next games.
http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/60534
I am not a strong baseball fan to begin. But after seeing the Olympics in the recent games, i am appaled. I would rather watch mens water polo or a boring track and field event then watch our most beloved sport in our country. I could not recognize one name player in the MLB. I thought that the sport was supposed to portray the best players in your country. This obviously is not true. The Olympics and baseball simply do not mix. Softball, perhaps, but not baseball. Players are too expensive and are deeply rooted in their own teams. Unless the MLB comes to a stand still during the games, no players will go to the Olympics. Its all or nothing so let the vote pass and bring in rugby!
Baseball back to the Olympics for the 2016 games? A group led by Harvey Schiller, who is the international Baseball Federation president will go to Lausanne, Switzerland to appeal to the IOC. In the group there will also be the Bob Dupuy MLB president and the Detroit Tigers outfielder Curtis Granderson.
I am all for getting baseball back into the Olympics. The concensus argument seems to be that no big name MLB players play in the games. But I don't think that it should matter because the Olympics shouldn't be about revenue it should be about countries team's getting together to see which country has the best team. It seems as though baseball was taken out of the Olympics because no big name MLB players were on any teams, which would create a lot of revenue from people coming to watch them play. The World Baseball classic has managed to make it so that major players can play, why can't the Olympics?
The Beijing Games gave new life to the U.S. Olympic Committee's two-year-old effort to launch a cable channel. USOC Chief Operating Officer Norman Bellingham said the Beijing Games have brought more "energy" to the conversations that the organization is having because the event "proved the strength of the Olympic brand and the value of the underlying content -- not just the Games, but Olympic sports in general."
The channel, which will include a mix of live events, documentaries on Olympic moments and history, biographies of athletes, and coaching and instructional videos, should do very well according to USOC officials. Personally I'm not sure how will this channel will do. I love the fact that this channel will allow viewers to learn and relive moments from Olympics in the past but I don't know how well this will do during the years when there aren't any Olympic Games.
It seems that all of that talk during the Olympics about Michael Phelps' endorsement potential is finally beginning to take shape. Kellogg's is among the first in what I'm sure will be a long line of companies to cash in on the fame and fortune that comes with the world's largest TV audience. It gets even better... Kellogg's has pledged $250,000 to the Michael Phelps Foundation. Phelps started the foundation with the $1 million bonus that he received from Speedo for tying Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals. Not too shabby.
From sportsbusinessdaily.com (registration/subscription required)
Kellogg Co. has unveiled the special-edition packaging featuring U.S. Gold Medal-winning swimmer Michael Phelps that will appear on boxes of Frosted Flakes, Corn Flakes, Club Crackers and Rice Krispies Treats Marshmallow Squares in the U.S. beginning this week. The packaging will depict some of Phelps' signature moments from the Beijing Games. Meanwhile, Kellogg's Corporate Citizenship Fund has pledged $250,000 to the Michael Phelps Foundation (Kellogg Co.). Phelps: "My friends were joking with me, asking, 'So you're going to be (on cereal boxes) with Tony the Tiger?' I said 'Yup.' Pretty cool" (Baltimore SUN, 9/26). In Baltimore, Elizabeth Large wrote, "I can see why you'd want Phelps on your box of Frosted Flakes, to encourage the little tykes who hero-worship him to buy your breakfast cereal. But Club Crackers?" (BALTIMORESUN.com, 9/25).
Remember having your mother tell you that you need to step into someone elses shoes in order to understand a situation? Well, now is your chance! This coming July Nike is releasing products which will be worn by your favorite basketball players on TEAM USA. Nike has developed an "18 percent lighter than the average Nike basketball shoe and is the lightest and strongest basketball shoe Nike has ever created." Sports technology is not just for the pro's, it's now coming to a store nearest you! Save up, buy, and score!
"Key products inspired by the USA Basketball uniform and Hyperdunk footwear featuring Flywire technology will be available to consumers beginning July 26th. WHEN: Monday, June 30 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm Media check in at the top of the steps to the ice rink begins at 11:30 am WHERE: Rockefeller Center Ice Rink 30 Rockefeller Plaza MEDIA INFO: Media availability for Team USA will take place from 2:30 pm until 4:30 pm at the Plaza Hotel. Enter on 58th Street. Media check-in for interviews at the Plaza begins at 1:30 pm. Players will NOT be available individually, but in pool sessions. To view the entire USA Basketball player roster, please visit www.usabasketball.com....
Can olympic players win without technology? It seems that preforming in sports games without any type of sports enhancement technology is something of the colonial times. What ever happened to just good old plain
jane competition? Has it officially died? Is sports now merely a competition of technology?
Technology is now an advantage in sports. Better equipment now means better preformance. But what if you don't have the money or the means for this technology? Are there still olympic compeditors who are without these technology means?
Yes! Alas! There are still compeditors doing things the "old fashion way"!!
"While in Cairo, Egyptian sprinter Amr Seoud says he trains without using any special technology. "There is no latest technology at all. I am just training. I have a track and some spiked shoes," says Seoud.
But coach Medhat Nabi points out that training methods and even the track are more modern than a generation ago. "In the past, we used to run on a sand field. There was no 'tartan' synthetic track," he says, "and timing was done manually."
Technology has long been used in sports to improve athletic performance, even if it gives the winning edge to athletes and countries that are technologically advanced.
At the U.S. Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs, gymnast Todd Thornton uses a digital video system to improve his technique.
"For the majority of my career I have trained without this system. I can tell you, our coaches can tell
us all day long that we are doing something wrong, but if it feels right to us we are not going to kn
ow unless we see it," said Thornton. "It gives us that advantage to be able to see what we are doing...."
The NHL started off the 2007-08 season with a couple of games in London. Apparently, this was not a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Just like the NFL, the National Hockey League is now considering a dozen European cities as potential sites for league games in the near future. Commissioner Gary Bettman is also flirting with the idea of not having an Olympic break to allow NHL players to represent their home countries in the Olympics. This looks like another one of Bettman's ideas to increase revenue as well as to try and expand the league's fan base. However, in the process, he must realize that this will mean less NHL games for its current fans to watch if played overseas and many countries will not take too kindly that, in their quest for the Olympic gold, you are banning their best players.--------------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK -- The National Hockey League is considering a dozen European cities as potential hosts for regular-season games but may not send players to the 2014 Olympics in Russia, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said.
Bettman told Reuters that while European interest would probably lead to more NHL games staged overseas, the premier professional ice hockey league might rethink its policy of shutting down in mid-season so players can compete in the Olympics.
"Our experience in London was terrific," Bettman told Reuters on Tuesday about the NHL's season-opening games this year between the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks.
"There are rumors rampant that we might go to Prague or Stockholm next," Bettman said at the Reuters Media Summit. "We're looking at the options.
"I could envision at a point in time in the future to maybe go to a dozen different cities over time. There are lots of hockey markets with tremendously avid fans throughout Europe."
Bettman mentioned Moscow, St. Petersburg, Helsinki and various German cities among the possibilities.
MSNBC reports that Beijing organizers plan to stage the longest torch relay in Olympic history - an 85,000-mile, 130-day route that would cross five continents. The Olympic torch is traditionally lit at Olympia, Greece and carried by relayers to the host city. It has gone out Twice in the past, but this new torch technology is designed to hold up to gale-wind forces...
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BEIJING (AP) -Beijing organizers are designing a high-tech Olympic torch capable of withstanding gale-force wind, torrential rain and even the oxygen-thin air atop Mount Everest.
To eliminate chances of the flame going out, authorities have set up a torch design lab under the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, the Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday...
Originally published in the New York Sun. It's that time again: Cities around the world have begun the biannual process of promising the greatest show on earth to the voting members of the International Olympic Committee. They'll hope that the pandering and the commitment of spending boatloads of taxpayers' dollars will pay off and they will be selected as the host city for the Olympics. Last Friday, the committee announced that seven cities have submitted an application to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Baku, Azerbaijan; Chicago; Doha, Qatar; Madrid; Prague, Czech Republic; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Tokyo will all "officially" enter the Olympics race first heat on October 1. That is when the bidding cities find out just how much real support they have from their local governments -- which is a key component to an Olympic bid.
The IOC itself can figure out how much real support a bidding city has through a questionnaire, or "mini bid-book," which has to be completed and turned in on January 14, 2008.
The mini bid-book will give the bidders a chance to explain if they have what it takes to run a 17-day sports festival. What the IOC is looking for is pretty simple: How much money will local and national governments spend on facilities, how much television and Internet money will be available, and how much corporate support can be counted upon so that the Games can go on? On June 8, 2008, the IOC will cut the list of candidates based on the mini bid-books. Those running in the second heat will adjust money figures and show the IOC that their local governments are prepared to spend to the max in an effort to get the Games. The rationale behind the bids will be simple: We will show off our city to the world, make our city a tourist destination, and while we are building all sorts of new sports venues, we will work on urban renewal.
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